By Jed


The second day was definitely a highlight. It started with a couple of beautiful lakes, complete with mountain reflections and pink flamingos enjoying it all. We then arrived at a volcano with a seafoam green lake in front of it. Despite its beauty, it is not a good idea to touch the green lake as it is full of arsenic. There were some interesting sites at the lake too, including a very cuddly-looking wild fox and a band which randomly decided this was a good place to jam.


After an eventful second day, and the main event tomorrow, this was a bit more of a relaxing day through still some nice mountain scenery. We stopped at some more lakes, inlcuding a “black lake” (but the effect of the coloring here was quite lackluster compared to the red and green lakes we had seen previously) and saw some interesting petrified rocks that had some unique shapes due to erosion.

We woke up before sunrise to get into the Salar De Uyuni on our last day. What exactly is the Salar de Uyuni? It is a massive salt flat that was created when an ancient ocean dried up and left behind the salty earth. It is 100 meters (330 feet) deep of pure salt and it stretches as far as the eye can see (it took hours to drive through it all). The pure white surface and mountains in the backdrop makes it seem like you are in some sort of glacier, but the warm temperatures snap you back to reality. In the winter season, the shallow water surface and white ground causes a spectacular reflection of the sky that is one of the craziest things I've seen...in pictures. Unfortunately, we were there in dry season but the scenery is still incredible. The dry salt forms a unique pattern on the ground and the expansive white landscape is still amazing
After a quick stop at a random train “graveyard,” our four day trip was over. Besides the salar, we didn't know quite what to expect on these four days. It was nice being surprised along the way. It is quite the pain to make it to the south of Bolivia, but if you are in the country, you definitely have to make the journey; it was one of the highlights of our trip.